Expectations from Haas
At the centre of attention of the drivers market on the eve of the Hungarian Grand Prixwith the announcement of the separation from Kevin Magnussen at the end of the year and the arrival of Oliver Bearman for the next season, the Haas arrived at the Hungaroring with the aim of achieving a third consecutive points finish, demonstrating the progress made by the American team in recent races.
Problems in race pace, but not only
A mission that neither Magnussen nor his teammate Nico Hulkenberg they managed to complete successfully. After having almost qualified for Q3 on Saturday, the situation became even more complicated for the German in the race. Having made a less than thrilling start, the future Sauber driver found it even more difficult to climb back up to the points zone on a track unfavorable to overtaking, thus finishing in 13th and for the first time outside the top-10 after two races in the points:
“It was a bad start and a rather negative first lap that put us in difficultyand when you don’t have the track position, which is very important here, it’s very difficult – has explained – when you are behind with dirty air, you have to try something and push your luck, and an early stop was the answer to that. Then we had to do two very long stints on the hard tyres and we knew it would be difficult, because we couldn’t make the tyres last long enough. On the lap we were quite competitive, but on the race pace not so much.a bit like in Monaco”.
15th in qualifying and race. A bitter weekend for Magnussenalready aware of his future in 2025 away from Haas and with the challenge of finding a seat for next year in F1: “We rolled the dice a bit with the soft tyre start, as did a couple of others, and I gained a lot of positions on the first lap. I got passed by a few cars and, ultimately, we didn’t have the pace to fight for points. I think we could have done better in qualifying, but looking at the pace today I don’t think we were in the running for the points anyway. Anyway, let’s take another lesson from this weekend and hope for Spa to be better.”
#Hülkenberg #misses #points #competitive #race #pace